Wednesday, October 31, 2012

As the U. S. election winds down everyone needs to
go back to looking at Europe, which continues
to self-destruct. At the front of the
line is Greece, where
austerity policy imposed by Germany
is resulting in harsh, and even dire conditions for much of the populace.

The problem in Greece is that the
government has been spending far more than it takes in, and often doing it
in unproductive and wasteful ways. But
that is not all of the problem, it turns out wealthy people in Greece
have been avoiding
paying taxes, making the fiscal situation much worse.

Despite years of
austerity, Athens's efforts to crack down on tax evasion—which costs the
government as much as €28 billion a year, according to one recent study by
Margarita Tsoutsoura of the University of Chicago's Booth School of
Business—have been poor.

Few tax-dodging cases
have been successfully prosecuted.

"Unfortunately,
justice has been quick to move against those who reveal, while showing
sluggishness against those who conceal, who lost, forgot, didn't see and didn't
hear," said Greece's radical-left opposition party, Syriza.

So the big news in Greece is the publication of a
list of wealthy tax payers who avoid paying taxes.

The
list—and the failure of Greek authorities to act on it for two years—has
touched off controversy in recent weeks in a country suffering through the
fifth year of a grinding recession, with the government preparing an additional
€13.5 billion ($17.5 billion) round of spending cuts and new tax measures.

European Pressphoto Agency

Costas Vaxevanis denied he violated

privacy laws in publishing a list of

Greeks with Swiss bank accounts.

And what has the brave and wonderful Greek government
done, the government that has rained misery on the citizens.

ATHENS—Greek authorities arrested a celebrated investigative journalist Sunday after his magazine disclosed the names of several thousand Greeks with Swiss bank accounts, including members of the country's political and business elite,

That’s right, law enforcement officials arrested the
person who published the list. Well at
least we now have something billionaires in this country would approve of in Greece.

The controversy over
remarks by Mitt Romney’s campaign co-chair about why Colin Powell endorsed
Barack Obama have been largely ignored by the mainstream media. No one knows why they won’t report the
news. It may be that they sense a Romney
victory and want to suck up to him in hopes of favorable treatment in the
future.

John Sununu, who is serving
as Co-Chairman of the Romney campaign has made a number of racist remarks about
Barack Obama, and most recently said that the only reason Colin Powell endorsed
Mr. Obama was because both of them were African Americans. Mr. Romney invoked his typical silence on the
issue, profiles in courage he ain’t.

Then Sen. John McCain
has weighed in on the issue and produced
a statement that is even more disgusting than what Mr. Sununu said,
something no one thought was possible.
From Taegan Goddard.

October 26, 2012

"Colin Powell, interestingly enough, said that Obama got
us out of Iraq.
But it was Colin Powell, with his testimony before the U.N. Security Council,
that got us into Iraq."

-- Sen. John McCain, quoted by theNational Review, upset with the former Secretary of State's
endorsement of President Obama.

Yes, that John McCain, the cheerleader for the war in Iraq, the man
who other than George W. Bush and his administration was more responsible for
the U. S. getting into Iraq and staying there than any other person.

And yes, we can see the hypocrisy dripping from his lips, can’t
everyone?

A truck is speeding
away from police in rural Texas
near the border. It’s rear area is
covered. The natural assumption of any
rational person is that this is a vehicle full of illegal aliens. The natural assumption of at least some Texas law enforcement
authorities is that these
are drug dealers who should be shot on sight.

Two people were killed
in Texas’s Rio GrandeValley
after a state trooper flying in a highway patrol helicopter opened fire on a
fleeing pickup authorities thought was smuggling drugs, officials said.

Of course, no drugs were found and the people inside
the truck were suspected of being illegals trying to enter the country.

No
drugs were found inside the truck. Troopers found three people shot inside the
truck, two of them dead. The third person was hospitalized and seven others
were taken into custody, including one who initially fled, according to the
statement. All the passengers and the injured person are suspected to be
illegal immigrants, officials said Friday. They did not release the identities
of those killed.

So why the deadly force?

As
the driver fled, the warden followed in pursuit, radioed for backup, and a
Texas Department of Public Safety helicopter and ground units were called in to
assist, Cox said.

Troopers
suspected the driver was smuggling drugs, according to an agency statement
released to The Times on Friday by spokesman Tom Vinger. The truck had
"a typical 'covered' drug load in the bed," the statement said.

During
the pursuit, the truck driver "was traveling at reckless speeds
endangering the public."

Eventually,
a trooper “discharged his firearm from the helicopter to disable the
vehicle,” according to the statement.

Well, it is true that killing the driver will disable
a vehicle. And we would have more
sympathy for the individual that made this tragic mistake if we understood why
multiple shots were fired and why it was necessary to shoot at all, since there
are things like roadblocks these days, or at least there have been since the
1930’s.

The tragedy here is the loss of life, even if the
victims were illegal aliens that is not a crime punishable be death from a
police helicopter. But the greater
tragedy is that no one really seems to care that people were killed just because
they were trying to get to America.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

With the exception of
a brief period in late September, where Mr. Romney seemed to be throwing
away his chances to win the Presidency this Forum has always said that the
election was Mr. Romney’s to lose. After
Mr. Obama allowed Mr. Romney to “etch-a-sketch” his positions in the first
debate the momentum has swung back to Mr. Romney. He can still lose, but only if he does a
couple of stupid things and only if Mr. Obama does not run a perfect closing
campaign.

So it is now time to
look at what will happen if Mr. Romney does win as far as economic and
fiscal policies are concerned. Here are
the guaranteed predictions.

The
fiscal cliff, with the expiration of all of the Bush era tax cuts will not
happen. Congress will pass and Mr.
Romney will sign a one year extension of those tax cuts, with the
exception of the payroll tax cut.

The
sequester of spending that was mandated by the debt ceiling agreement will
happen only for domestic spending.
Military spending will not be cut, in fact it may be increased.

Medicaid
will become a block grant, beginning the process of ending the program
except for the seriously ill and the seriously poor. People on Medicaid will lose most of
their benefits, and to get treatment they will have to wait in long lines
with lengthy delays to even see a physician.

The
ACA, known as Obamacare will be repealed.
What, if anything will take its place is unknown, and it is likely
that disagreements in the Congress will prevent anything from being
enacted. The most popular
provision, allowing children up to the age of 26 to stay on their parent’s
policy is the most likely provision to survive. The provision requiring insurance
companies to accept enrollees with pre-existing conditions may also
survive, but with no price controls anyone without insurance and with a
pre-existing condition will probably find the $17,000 a month premium a
little too high.

The
new administration will find that low interest rates are not the problem
they thought they were. In fact the
only reason Republicans felt that low rates were a problem is that they
were afraid that would help the economy and help Democrats.

It’s very easy to
determine if a political party is for or against improving women’s health
and supporting women on health issues.
Never mind what they say, do they actively support policy that helps
women and deals with their health issues.

This is really the
case involving Planned Parenthood, a large national organization devoted
to improving low income women’s access to health care.

Planned Parenthood, .
. . provides low-income patients with a range of other services, such as cancer
screening, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and prenatal care.

So what’s the
problem? We all know the answer to
that, an independent affiliate of Planned Parenthood provides abortion
services, services that are perfectly legal and provided without a single
dollar of government support. But that’s
enough for hard line Conservatives to want to deny funding to all of Planned
Parenthood. Fortunately a Federal Court
has determined this is highly illegal.

A
federal appeals court blocked an Indiana
law that cut public funding to abortion providers, underscoring a divide in the
federal judiciary over whether states can strip Planned Parenthood of subsidies
for health services such as cancer screening and prenatal care.

The
2011 law excluded Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from
Medicaid, the state-administered health-care program for low-income Americans.
The Chicago-based Seventh U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday that the law deprived Medicaid patients
of their right to obtain medical care from providers of their choice.

The rationale for the ruling is pretty simple,
straight forward and unambiguous.

Federal
law says individuals who are eligible for Medicaid may obtain assistance from
"any institution, agency, community pharmacy, or person, qualified to
perform the service or services required." The Seventh Circuit, in a 3-0
ruling written by Judge Diane Sykes, an appointee of President George W. Bush,
said Planned Parenthood was indisputably a qualified provider.

So the next time
Conservatives talk about how they want government out of the health care
decisions, decisions like which providers a patient can go to everyone should
remember what they mean is that they and government get the right to decide,
not the patients. No, it’s not very
conservative, but then conservatives are not very conservative.

Monday, October 29, 2012

One of the most
astounding tax facts ever uncovered is that the National Football League is
a tax exempt company. No not the teams
themselves, the League. Here
are the details from Jay Bookman, (and thanks to Paul Caron)

Once in a while, I run
across something that I did not know and it leaves me flabbergasted.

For example, I did not
know that the National Football League, the colossus of professional sports, is
classified as a non-profit — a tax-free non-profit, to be more specific. That’s
right: The NFL has its own exemption, written into federal law, that makes it
exempt from federal corporate taxes.

So how big and profitable is the NFL?

In
2010, the registered NFL nonprofit alone received $184 million from its 32
member teams. It holds over $1 billion in assets. Together with its
subsidiaries and teams – many of which are for-profit, taxed entities – the NFL
generates an estimated $9 billion annually. Each of its teams are among the top
50 most expensive sports teams in the world, ranking alongside the world’s
famous soccer teams. Almost half of professional football teams are valued at
over $1 billion….

League
commissioners and officials benefit from the nonprofit status of their
organizations. Roger Goodell, commissioner of the NFL, reported $11.6 million
in salary and perks in 2010 alone. Goodell’s salary will reportedly reach $20
million in 2019. Steve Bornstein, the executive vice president of media, made
$12.2 million in 2010. Former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue earned $8.5
million from the league in 2010. The league paid five other officials a total
of $19.2 million in just one year. In comparison, the next highest salary of a
traditional nonprofit CEO is $3.4 million.

And how did this happen?
Gosh, take a guess. Lobbyists

The
NFL’s exemption stems from a 1966 law, passed at the time of the merger with
the old American Football League, specifically allowing “professional football
leagues” to enjoy 501(c)(6) status as tax-exempt trade organizations. Other
leagues have piggy-backed on that legislation to claim that status themselves.

And no, state and local governments are not immune from the
desire to aid billionaires.

As
the Coburn report points out, “state and local governments usually exempt these
organizations from state income and sales tax as well….” As the
Indiana Business Journal reported, that proved to be a nice little perk
when the Super Bowl was held in Indianapolis
this year, because “hotels and restaurants … won’t be taxing National Football
League employees. They’re exempt from paying, according to an Indiana
Department of Revenue directive. The NFL is using its tax-exempt status as a
501(c)(6) to avoid paying the taxes, in addition to fuel, auto rental and
admissions taxes.”

And of course, everyone wants to look out for the taxpayers,
who are being asked to fund new stadiums.
For example in Atlanta

a
hotel-motel tax was used to build the Georgia Dome and would also be used to
help finance the proposed new open-air stadium demanded by the Falcons. If
Georgia tax law is like that of many states, the NFL and its employees would be
exempted from paying the tax that everyone else must pay to subsidize stadiums
built for a highly profitable industry.

But don’t expect any politicians to move any time soon to
end these tax breaks. It is easier to
cut benefits for poor people, and beside, if they ended the benefits they
wouldn’t get those free tickets to the corporate box to watch the games,
insulated from the taxpayers whose welfare they care nothing about.

Here is one of the
most distinguished Americans of modern times, a Republican, explaining
why he is supporting the re-election of the President.

Appearing on "CBS
This Morning," Powell credited Obama with reversing the country's abrupt
economic downturn and expressed general approval of the president's policies on
issues ranging from national security to climate change to health care reform.

“I think, generally,
we’ve come out of the [economic] dive and we’re starting to gain altitude,”
said Powell, who served as George W. Bush’s secretary
of state. “It doesn’t mean all our problems are solved....But I see that we are
starting to rise up."

"I also saw the
president get us out of one war, start to get us out of a second war, and did
not get us into any new wars," Powell added. "The actions that he has
taken with respect to protecting us from terrorism have been very, very solid."

"Frankly,
when you take a look at Colin Powell, you have to wonder if that's an
endorsement based on issues, or whether he's got a slightly different reason
for preferring President Obama?" Sununu said on CNN's "Piers Morgan
Tonight."

"What
reason would that be?" a somewhat-perplexed sounding Morgan replied.

"Well,
I think when you have somebody of your own race that you're proud of being
President of the United States, I applaud Colin for standing with him,"
Sununu said.

Add those offensive remarks to Sarah Palin’s
references to “shuck and jive” and you get the picture of the modern Republican
party with respect to race and racial prejudice.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

As Florida Drops to Mr.
Romney, Ohio and Virginia are Key for Mr. Obama

It is about one week
before this long, awful Presidential campaign is over, and about two weeks
before the 2016 race begins. Here is how
things look here, based on national polling, state polling and the author’s
seat of the pants polling.

States

Certain

Competitive

Certain

Competitive

Romney

Romney

Obama

Obama

Alabama

9

California

55

Michigan

16

Alaska

3

Connecticut

7

Iowa

6

Arkansas

6

Arizona

11

Delaware

3

Maine

4

Georgia

16

Florida

29

D. C.

3

New Jersey

14

Idaho

4

Missouri

10

Hawaii

4

Pennsylvania

20

Indiana

11

Montana

3

Illinois

20

Washington

12

Kansas

6

Nevada

6

Maryland

10

Minnesota

10

Kentucky

8

New Hampshire

4

Massachusetts

11

New Mexico

5

Louisiana

8

North Carolina

15

New York

29

Mississippi

6

Virginia

13

Oregon

7

North Dakota

3

Wisconsin

10

Rhode Island

4

Nebraska

5

Colorado

9

Vermont

3

Oklahoma

7

Ohio

18

South Carolina

9

South Dakota

3

Tennessee

11

Texas

38

Utah

6

West Virginia

5

Wyoming

3

Totals

Certain

167

128

Certain

156

87

Competitive

128

Competitive

87

Total

295

Total

243

At this point Mr.
Obama has two strategies to win. He
can carry Ohio and Virginia,
or he can sweep Nevada, New
Hampshire, Wisconsin and Colorado (or some
combination, but there are too many of those to think about).

Ohio is interesting, the most expert of the
experts, Nate
Silver claims the state is not a toss-up.

October 27, 2012

Nate Silverlooks at
the polling average in Ohio
-- made up of roughly a dozen polling firms who have surveyed the state over
the past 10 days -- and notes it shows President Obama with a 2.4 percentage
point lead over Mitt Romney.

"There are no precedents in the database for
a candidate losing with a two- or three-point lead in a state when the polling
volume was that rich... It is misinformed to refer to Ohio as a toss-up. Mr. Obama is the favorite
there, and because of Ohio's
central position in the Electoral College, he is therefore the overall favorite
in the election."

The
race for the White House continues to be too close to call in Ohio, according
to a new Enquirer/Ohio News Organization Poll that shows President Barack Obama
and Mitt Romney each with 49 percent support from likely voters.

That’s a slip for the president, who took 51
percent of likely voters in the newspaper group’s September poll.

Romney’s support grew among males, among high
school and college graduates and among respondents in every age category except
18 to 29.

which is the very definition of a toss up.

So yes, the time
period is finite, and in about 10 days everyone will know the results. And then back to economics, the really
important stuff.

The energy industry
in the United States is and has been moving away from a coal based
system. This has been going on for
decades, and the causes are environmental and economics. The economics of natural gas, solar and wind
power are slowly driving coal out of the energy industry. And the growing awareness of just how
horrible the polluting effects of coal based energy are is hurrying the exit.

All of this has taken
a terrible toll
on the people of coal country, and their suffering is only enhanced by the
fact that they live in some of the poorest regions of the country.

Luke Sharrett for The New York Times

Mayor Jay Swiney of Appalachia, Va., a coal miner, blames the president for the industry's troubles and will vote for Mitt Romney.

Here is just a sample of what is happening.

In September, several
hundred coal miners were furloughed for at least two months because of rising
costs and shrinking demand. The company, Consol,
announced on Wednesday that some workers will remain idled even after mining
resumes the first week of November.

Other plants have shut
down for good, citing in part foreign competition. Larry Lambert, 61, is one of
the unlucky miners who spent a day this week at a résumé-writing seminar, which
was a requirement for picking up his unemployment check.

The people of the
area largely blame the President and the EPA,

“The
E.P.A. has put so many strangleholds on the power companies they can’t burn the
coal we are mining,” Mr. Lambert said. He added that Mr. Obama seemed appealing
four years ago, but has betrayed coal miners.

but it is economics and environmental awareness is what is
at work here, not politics or regulation.

Mr. Romney, like any other craven politician is
exploiting the situation

Mr.
Romney’s campaign is aggressively tapping into anger at President Obama’s environmental
policies throughout the Appalachian counties where the state’s coal miners
live, hoping that huge margins there will offset Mr. Obama’s equally aggressive
campaign to woo female voters in the suburbs of Northern Virginia, just outside
Washington.

And he is gathering support

One
of Mr. Romney’s ads, appearing frequently on television, begins with a coal
miner saying, “Obama is ruining the coal industry.” Mr. Romney held a rally in
Abingdon, Va., this month. His son Matt spoke to 7,500 people last week in
Grundy, a town of just 996 people.

But the truth of the matter is even if he repeals
regulations that will not stop the movement away from using coal to generate
electricity.

Even worse, his social policy, which will deny or
reduce government benefits to people who need them the most, like unemployed
coal miners, will make the citizens of the coal region worse off, not better
off. And yes, if Mr. Romney is elected
he will soon forget about these people.
There are not enough of them to make a difference, and none of them own
NFL teams, or NASCAR teams or pal around with billionaires.

No, all we have here is the cruel exploitation of
good, decent hard working Americans. Men and women who work in some of the hardest, most dangerous occupations in the country. And yes they need help, but all they get is pandering.